thyself

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English thī-self, also written þi self and þi sülf,^[2][3] which in the 13th century replaced the older inherited from Old English þē self, used from Old English into the 14th century.^[3][4] The Old English phrase is formed from þē (“thee”) and self;^[5][6][3] it was originally the accusative and dative of þū self (“thou thyself”),^[5][4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged names the dative þē selfum and the accusative þē selfne.^[7] The nominative þū self itself lived on in emphatic use into Middle English, in Laȝamon's “Brut” and in “The Owl and the Nightingale”.^[5] In Middle English the form was remodelled after the possessives thy and thine, partly because forms with a weakened first vowel were heard as thy, and partly by analogy with herself, which had been reanalysed in the same way;^[5][7][4] the Shorter Oxford notes that the word has long been understood as thy + the noun self.^[6] The Middle English Dictionary accordingly derives it from thīn and self.^[2] It is formed like myself,^[5][3] and Etymonline notes that it has been written as one word since the 16th century.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Thou or thee yourself, in emphatic apposition to the pronoun or after an imperative: Old English, in the poem Crist I; the reflexive use is just as old, in the Waldere fragment.^[5] The remodelled Middle English form þi-self is recorded from about 1300,^[8] the Middle English Dictionary's first quotation being from the South English Legendary (before 1325).^[2]

Semantic evolution

The OED distinguishes two Old English constructions: in one, self agreed in case with the accusative or dative þē; in the other, self agreed with the subject of the sentence, and þē was a kind of reflexive or ethical dative.^[5] From the 13th century the word could also be used like a noun, for one's own very self or being, now rare;^[5] from the 14th century it could stand in place of thou as the subject of a sentence, as predicate, and after as or than.^[5][6] The King James Bible's "Physician, heal thyself" (Luke 4:23) is one of its best-known uses.^[7] Johnson (1755) described it as mostly used in the oblique cases or after a verb, and only in poetical or solemn language as a nominative.^[9] It is now archaic,^[7][10] or dialectal, and the Shorter Oxford calls its emphatic use as a subject poetic.^[6]

Timeline

• Old English – emphatic, in apposition to thou or thee or after an imperative; also reflexive, and as the object of a verb or preposition in place of thee.^[5]
• before 1300 – noun-like, thy own self, thy very being (now rare).^[5]
• c. 1300 – the remodelled form þi-self.^[8][2]
• before 1400 – in place of thou, as the subject of a sentence.^[5]
• c. 1400 – as predicate, and after as or than.^[5]
• 16th century – written as one word.^[8]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (archaic) The reflexive form of thou and thee; yourself, said to one person: Thou hast wronged thyself.^[10][7][5]
2. (archaic) Used for emphasis after thou or thee, or after an imperative: Go thou thyself and see.^[10][5][6]
3. (archaic) Used in place of thou or thee, as subject or object.^[5][6][9]

Related words

• thou
• thee
• thy
• thine
• self
• myself
• herself
• yourself

Usage notes

Wright's English Dialect Dictionary records the word in living 19th-century dialect speech in Scotland, Ireland, the north of England, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Somerset and Devon, in forms such as theesel, theeself, thysel and theezelf; some of them, in Cumberland, were then nearly obsolete.^[11] The Shorter Oxford likewise labels the word archaic and dialectal.^[6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)